“Lindsay!”
“Dad!”
“You scared me! I heard rustling in the bushes and thought someone was trying to break in!”
“I scared you!? I thought I was being robbed! Where the hell is your car?”
“Don’t curse. I rode my motorcycle. It’s parked out back.”
Lindsay began to untangle herself from the spiky bush in which she was half-lying, half-sprawling. Her voluminous, curly hair clung to the branches, twisting tighter with her every move. She winced with pain as she tried to pull it free.
“Don’t move. You’re making it worse. I’ll come out and help you. Let me go and get a pair of scissors.”
Lindsay lowered her head back toward the bushes. She was in an awkward form of the yogic Camel Posture, on her knees with the top half of her body arched backward. She stared straight up as a white scar of lightening raked the blackened sky. The first drops of rain began to fall. She watched them gather along the edge of the gutter, until they fell, swollen and plump, into her upturned face. Droplets accumulated on her glasses and dripped down her cheeks and chin, pooling in the hollow at the base of her throat. She twisted her body sideways to try to shield herself from the rain. She succeeded only in allowing the prickly spines of the bushes to pierce her clothing and drag themselves painfully across her skin.
“Hurry up, Dad!” Lindsay called impatiently, wiping her face with her damp shirtsleeve.
Jonah Harding emerged from the house a moment later, wielding a pair of scissors. He bent over her, trying to determine the best place to start cutting. A wide smile crept across his face. “Huh, you look a little like I’d imagine Absalom looking, hanging by his hair from the oak tree.”
The Biblical reference was apt, Lindsay decided. “Yes, but Absalom was punished for trying to kill his father. I haven’t done that…yet.”
“If you’re going to be cantankerous, I can just leave you there to undergo Chinese water torture.”
“Ha-ha.”
Lindsay looked at her father’s face as he leaned over and began to snip away her tangled curls. He was still youthful, despite having celebrated his fiftieth birthday earlier that year. He had a full head of wavy sandy blond hair, which he kept neatly trimmed. The hair around his temples was shot through with streaks of silver. His warm, brown eyes crinkled slightly as he concentrated on his task.
“There was a message on your answering machine from your mother,” Jonah said. “She wondered if you got the card she sent.”
The rain intensified and Jonah shifted his torso to try to shield Lindsay’s face from the rain. Discussion of Sarabelle Harding, Lindsay’s erstwhile mother and Jonah’s faithless wife, always set off a powder keg of emotion and accusation between the two of them. Lindsay had yet to figure out if she resented Sarabelle more for abandoning them, or for the fact that Jonah still loved her, despite her having abandoned them.
“Why are you listening to my answering machine messages?”
“You never check them. I thought I’d write them all down for you so you’d see who called. There was also one from the dry cleaners saying that they are going to give your clothes away to charity if you don’t come and pick them up. Unfortunately, that one was dated the fourth of May.”
Lindsay and Jonah were quiet for a moment, letting the noise of the thunderstorm and the snipping of the scissors fill the space between them.
“I’m drowning here.” Lindsay complained. “How much more is there to go?”
“Just a couple of snips. Are you coming to the tent meeting this weekend?”
“You know that I love my theology sung by a praise band with electric guitars.”
“I don’t appreciate your mockery, Miss. The Lord can speak through electric guitars just as loudly as he speaks through His divine miracles,” Jonah said, punctuating his words with a sharp snip of the scissors.
If it is possible for an eye roll to be stifled, Lindsay stifled an eye roll. Her father’s sincerity, as usual, made her feel childish and ashamed. “I’ll try, Dad, but I’m really busy this weekend. I’m doing a memorial service tomorrow.”
“What about on Sunday?”
“I’ll try.”
“I think that’s the last one.” Jonah made a final snip and hoisted Lindsay to her feet.
They walked inside the house, Lindsay making a beeline for the medicine cabinet, where she retrieved a small first aid kit. She tended to the long, painful scratches that covered the backs of her legs and arms. She snuck a quick glance in the mirror to survey the results of her unintended haircut. Even in the best of times, her hair looked slightly disheveled, but it had now taken on the appearance of an exploded mattress, with curls of varying lengths springing out in every direction. She closed her eyes and cursed softly under her breath.
Lindsay made her way back into the living room, where the mysterious box she had seen through the window was revealed to be filled with pastries.
“Why were you carrying that around my house?”
“Mrs. Bugbee came by the church this afternoon with a big batch of buns. I know how much you like them, so I brought some over for you.”
“Thanks,” she said, flopping on the couch beside him.
Mrs. Bugbee’s Nutty Buns were famous, at least among those who frequented the mid-Piedmont evangelical church bake sale circuit. Mrs. Bugbee, a stout, middle-aged parishioner at Jonah’s church, guarded her Nutty Buns recipe like a Knight Templar guarding the Holy Grail. The gooey cinnamon and pecan concoctions covered at least three of the seven deadly sins—pride (Mrs. Bugbee’s downfall), envy (engendered in the minds of her co-bake sale ladies), and, closest to Lindsay’s heart, gluttony. She stuffed a piece of bun into her mouth.
“You know, you really need to start locking your doors,” Jonah said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Honey, I’m serious. If you thought I was a burglar, why didn’t you just drive to the neighbors or call the police on your cell? What would you have done if I really was a robber? Or a rapist? Or a drug addict coked out on angel dust?”
“‘Coked out on angel dust’?” Lindsay rolled her eyes. “I had an excellent plan. I was going to peak in through the window to see what was going on. Then if I thought you needed to be taken out, I would sneak up from behind and bludgeon you with my flashlight. Well, not you, the robber.”
Jonah pressed his index finger and thumb into the corners of his closed eyes. “I appreciate the boldness of your cunning plan. But somehow I don’t think you can rely on all five feet and a hundred pounds of you to take down a villain.”
He considered a moment, stroking the stubble on his chin. It was a familiar gesture, remembered from many Sundays watching him on the pulpit. The chin stroke was usually preceded by a particularly emphatic reading from the Bible and followed by a particularly rousing bit of preaching. Sure enough, Jonah turned toward her with an earnest expression.
“I wasn’t going to tell you this, because I didn’t want to frighten you unnecessarily. But I think you need a little bit of sense scared into you. When I pulled up to your house before, there was a white four by four parked out front. It drove off when I turned in here, but then I saw it circle back a few times, driving real slow. That’s why I ran to the window when I heard something outside. Anything could happen to you out here. It’s too secluded.”
“The seclusion is the reason why I like it. You worry too much. That SUV was probably just somebody lost in the neighborhood. It’s not easy to find your way around back here if you don’t know where you’re going.”
“Well, that may be. I need you to promise me, though, that you’ll be more careful next time.”
“I promise that next time you come by my house unannounced wielding a box of pastry, I will confront you with a machine gun a’blazing and a pack of ferocious Rottweilers.”
Jonah settled himself into the couch and helped himself to a Nutty Bun. “I liked you better when you were stuck in the bushes.”
Chapter 15
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Although Lindsay had the day off, she got up early on Saturday morning. She had to be at the country club for Vernon’s memorial by noon, but she first wanted to spend a few hours following up on the idea that had struck her during her evening with the Bullards. Vernon had told his wife that his research at the county library had uncovered something big. Lindsay intended to find out for herself what that something was. If anyone had asked her why she was taking this upon herself, she probably would have answered that she wanted to help Kimberlee out of her predicament. If there was another possible motive for Vernon’s murder hidden in the old diary, maybe it would exonerate Kimberlee. However, if God deigned to peek down into the grey folds of Lindsay’s little human brain, he would have seen one motive looming above all else: she needed to be the one to help. She wasn’t a martyr, exactly—just someone whose whole personality rested on a compulsion to ease the suffering of others.
But before Lindsay could do anything at all, for any motive whatsoever, she had some personal grooming to attend to. Leaning over a small trash can, she tried to rectify the previous nights’ follicular butchery. It took twenty minutes of cursing and pruning before she was able to discipline the coils and helixes of her hair into something that might charitably be called a hairstyle. It was a sort of triangular bob, coming in at an unflattering angle just above her chin. That gruesome task done, she hopped into her car and drove to the squat brick building over in New Albany that housed the county library and archives.
It was still early, and the library’s only patrons were a few old men who sat on torn vinyl chairs reading the morning newspapers. A librarian with a wide coffee-colored face and a lumpy, undulating body arranged papier-mâché animals on display shelves in the foyer. Lindsay skirted past them all and began to wander up and down aisles. She had rarely set foot in a library since college, and she drifted down row after row of books with titles like Passion at Rosewood Ranch and The Companion Guide to Appalachian Birdwatching. After a few more minutes of futile searching, she located the rotund librarian and asked for her help.
“I’m looking for an old book. A diary written by a freed slave. I can’t remember his name.”
The librarian’s ample jaw dropped open. “Don’t tell me you want Samuel Wilcox’s journal!”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to take a number. That thing is suddenly a popular item. There’s already someone else in the special collections room reading that very book. I can take you over there anyway. Maybe he’s not using the whole thing.”
“The whole thing?”
“You’ll see,” the librarian replied with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
The woman steered Lindsay down a long hallway, past a dripping water fountain and fading posters that emphatically exhorted young people to READ! BOOKS!
The librarian turned to Lindsay and said, “Now we keep this door locked, so if you need to use the bathroom or something, you’ll have to come and find me to let you back in.” She unlocked a squeaking metal door and ushered Lindsay inside. The small windowless room was lined with lockable glass cases that were filled from top to bottom with books of every shape and size. In the center of the room, a thin, red-haired man bent over the dark wooden table. He looked up at the sound of the door.
“Well snatch me bald-headed and call me Kojak, if it isn’t the Archbishop of Mount Moriah Medical Center!” Warren said cheerfully.
Lindsay strode across the room and grabbed a handful of Warren’s hair. From his seated position, his eyelevel was slightly below Lindsay’s. “You’re lucky that I don’t snatch you bald-headed, you two-faced liar. Hasn’t Kimberlee been through enough? How dare you come to her house all friendly and eat her chicken and pie and then have her arrested the very next day!? And then smile at me like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth?”
The librarian let out a little squeal of astonishment.
Warren reassured the woman, placing his hands firmly over Lindsay’s to keep her from tightening her grip. “It’s all right, ma’am. We’re old friends.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call the police? She looks dangerous.”
He released one of Lindsay’s hands and pulled his badge out of his shirt pocket, laying it on the table in front of him. “I am the police, as a matter of fact. A sergeant with the New Albany force. And this woman,” he said, prying Lindsay’s hands from his hair and forcing them to her sides, “is a Christian minister.”
The librarian acknowledged the badge, but continued to eye the pair suspiciously.
“We’ve just had a little miscommunication, but it’s okay now. Isn’t it, Lindsay?”
Lindsay shook herself free from Warren’s grip and crossed her arms over her thin chest. She turned on her heel and faced the librarian, giving her a sweet grin. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry for the disturbance. We just have a little difference of opinion over whether or not it’s okay to harass a grieving widow and try to bully her into confessing to a crime she didn’t commit.”
“See there?” Warren said, echoing Lindsay’s sugary smile. “We’re fine. Just a little disagreement between old friends. Would you mind giving us a moment, please?”
The librarian’s eyes darted to the cases of rare books that filled the room. Seeing this, Warren reassured her again. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We won’t hurt anything. If she acts up again, I’ll just handcuff her to the table.”
Clicking her tongue in disapproval, the librarian closed the large door and left them.
Warren turned to face Lindsay with a stern expression. “What’s the idea of flying at me like that? You’re lucky I didn’t let her call the police on you and have you taken down to the station.”
“Yeah, I suppose I am lucky, since that’s what you seem to like to do to defenseless women.”
“Well, judging by how you pounced on me like a rabid wildcat, I would hardly call you defenseless.” He rubbed his scalp with his fingertips. “Now would you please dismount your high horse for a minute while I try to explain what happened with Kimberlee?”
Not taking her eyes off him, Lindsay marched to the opposite side of the table and thumped into a chair. Clasping her hands and placing them on the table, she raised her eyebrow to indicate her consent for Warren to begin speaking. Warren rubbed his face with the tops of his closed fists. Looking at him now, Lindsay could see the fatigue in his eyes. He had a day or two’s worth of peach-colored stubble spreading across his cheeks and chin. He leaned forward in his chair. “I have my own doubts about whether Kimberlee had anything to do with Vernon’s murder. I’m afraid, though, that I might have set off something that’s taking on a life of its own. If you’re here for the reason I think you are, you might be able to help me stop it.”
Chapter 16
“That night when I came to see Kimberlee at her house, I just wanted to hear her side of things for myself. I already told you that Vernon had brought in that threatening letter the week before. We told the officers who were doing crowd control at the state park for the reenactment to keep an eye on him and look out for anything suspicious. But they had enough on their hands trying to keep teenagers from smoking pot under the bandstand and reuniting lost kids with their parents. Like I said, we’re not the Secret Service. It was Vernon’s decision to go that day, in spite of us warning him against it.
“I don’t know how much you know about these battle reenactments. I didn’t know much myself before last week. It’s almost like a play, where each person has a role set out for him. Before each battle, they come up with a list of guys who are supposed to take ‘hits.’ In theory, this would correspond to the proportion of casualties on each side in the actual battle, but in practice, no one wants to play dead in the grass for an hour and get eaten by mosquitoes and fried by the sun. So they draw straws, and come up with an order that those who are chosen have to take their hits. About half the guys were on the list; it was a bloody battle for the Rebs. Vernon was one of the ones picked to go down early
, so no one thought much of it when he took his hit. A few people saw him from a distance, rolling around on the grass, but they thought he was just trying to get into a more comfortable position on the ground.
“So, Vernon had been lying down for what we reckon was about twenty minutes. One of the reenactors is designated as a ‘medic’ who goes around checking on all the ‘casualties.’ Basically the medic just makes sure nobody who’s been laying there needs sun block or a snack. The medic, a wiry old timer by the name of Joe Tatum, came over and checked on Vernon. When Joe saw Vernon was in trouble, he dragged him over to a shady spot, gave him some water, and ran to one of the ambulances that were on site. They’ve always got a couple of ambulances at any kind of public event of this size. Anyway, I suppose Joe’s moving him was a good thing to do in terms of making Vernon comfortable, but unfortunately, it made a right pig’s supper of the crime scene.”
“I’ve known the Tatum family for years,” Lindsay said. “Old Joe does things his own way.”
“That’s putting it mildly. It has been well nigh impossible to get any coherent information about the way Vernon was positioned or the timeline of events or what all Mr. Tatum might have touched or disturbed. In his initial statement, he said that Vernon was still conscious when he found him. He has since changed his story and said he’s not sure if he was or he wasn’t. All this is by way of saying that we couldn’t really rule anything or anybody out based on what happened out there.”
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